A dozen-plus L.A. County deputies face arrest in jail abuse probe

Sheriff's deputies check on inmates on the 3000 level of the Men's Central Jail, which is where many of the most dangerous and violent detainees are housed. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

More than a dozen current and former "sworn officers" from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department are expected to be arrested as part of a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of abuse and misconduct inside the county's jails, according to sources familiar with the arrests.

At least three people — including a lieutenant, a sergeant and a deputy — were taken into custody by FBI agents as part of a federal obstruction of justice probe into how sheriff's officials handled an FBI informant at the center of the jail investigation, one source familiar with the probe said.

The U.S. attorney's office put out a news release Monday morning saying that "criminal corruption and civil rights" charges would be announced in the afternoon against members of a local law enforcement agency.

According to the release, more details would be publicly announced at 1 p.m. by André Birotte Jr., United States attorney in Los Angeles, and Bill Lewis, FBI assistant director in charge of the L.A. office.

The release included no details regarding who would be charged or the law enforcement agency of the “sworn officers.”

Sheriff Lee Baca "will have more to say about this later in the day," spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

"We have cooperated fully with this investigation and we will continue to do so," Whitmore said.

The arrests followed grand jury hearings into whether sheriff's officials hid inmate Anthony Brown from his FBI handlers. At least one witness testified that sheriff's officials moved the inmate and changed his name in an attempt to hide him from federal agents, and that top officials in the department played a role in the plan, according to another source familiar with the grand jury testimony.

Sheriff's officials insist they were not hiding Brown from the FBI but protecting him from other deputies.

It is unclear whether Monday's arrests included deputies accused of using excessive force against inmates.

Sheriff's officials discovered the informant's identity after jail deputies found his phone during a cell search in August 2011. The phone included calls to the FBI. In an interview with The Times last year, the informant said he had been using his phone to take photos and document excessive force inside Men's Central Jail. Brown said FBI agents regularly visited him in court and at the jail, where he supplied them with the names of corrupt and abusive deputies.

Brown said FBI agents rushed into the jail to visit him soon after they learned his cover had been blown. But as the meeting began, Brown said, a sheriff's investigator came in and ended it. "This … visit is over," the official said, according to Brown.

Brown said sheriff's officials moved him, changed his name several times and grilled him about what he knew and whether he would testify in the federal investigation.

"I didn't know it then, but they were hiding me from the feds," said Brown, who is serving 423 years to life in prison for armed robbery.

Sheriff's officials have publicly disputed Brown's account of the FBI visit, saying it never happened. Federal agents, a department spokesman previously said, never asked to visit Brown and would have been given access to the inmate had they requested it.